Katie has only had her tricycle for three weeks, and only gets to ride it on weekends (when we visit mom), but already she's a little pro.
In fact, it's a bit of work to keep up with her.
I remember when we shopped for it at WalMart, and Jen was genuinely worried that she wasn't big enough yet. That it'd be six months before she even figured out what to do with the pedals, and that we'd mostly push her around like we do when she's on her old plastic scooter. Even after I put it together, the seat in its lowest position still required Katie to tip-toe if she wanted to reach the ground.
The day she first got on, we shoved an old rake in the back of the seat (to save our backs) and pushed her around, to her general delight. She seemed more afraid of the pedals than anything. Of course, she took one sharp turn and tumbled off, and in a panic Jen had swept her up and stormed into the house before she could even whimper.
Well, eventually we got Katie back outside and on the tricycle again. The next weekend we were over, Katie was just as interested in pushing it with the rake (like we were) as she was in riding. And when she did ride, she vehemently resisted having any help. But I pushed her, I'd have to let go suddenly and look around innocently every time she turned around to see if I was foiling her independence.
;)
Well, last weekend she figured out what the pedals were for. She moved herself a bit, assisted in part by the slight incline of my mother's driveway. She couldn't steer well, though, and when it came time to head back up, she couldn't muster the strength. (But, of course, she'd still growl if she caught me playing tricycle motor. It was a circus trying to get back home.)
And today? She was pedaling around like she was practicing for a tricycle race. She steered clear of all parked cars and curbs, and even turned at the bottom of the driveway to head onto the sidewalk. I don't think I had to push her (over bumps and out of grass) more than twice. She could pedal and look around and enjoy the view at the same time.
During our second run down the driveway, she suddenly said, "Faster! Faster!" and pedaled faster. And by golly I was almost jogging to keep up with her. She also seemed quite prepared to turn the corner onto the sidewalk again, but I fortunately did the math and in an instant lifted her off just as the turn would have sent her rolling. She thought it was the funniest thing she'd done all day. We decided to finish off the afternoon with our first full circuit of the block.
She's not a baby any more. It's so cliche my face hurts when I say it out loud, but it's so true it makes my head light and my stomach flip as if I'd just tripped while crossing a narrow footbridge. Only a couple of months ago Jen and I still referred to her casually as "the baby," but I just realized today the phrase is pretty much gone, even as a term of affection, because reality ultimately made it incredibly absurd.
(She will, of course, forever be my baby, even when she's forty-one and serving her second term as president.)
Little things, like her becoming independently mobile on a wheeled device, sometimes seem almost silly to celebrate. But these little things never stop coming, and looking back, the trip from the first time she could lift her head to this afternoon when she seem ready to pedal all the way to Wahiawa seems so short and so steep, it's a wonder we're not in outer space.
Wonder of wonders, as we rounded the block, who should pull up but Steve Nedorolik.
Steve, my friend from high school, the tall kid who arguably liked Star Trek more than I did, who was one of my partners in a silly little video production studio that did absolutely nothing (but got a lot of strange footage of it). A guy I hadn't seen for six years before bumping into him at a Native American festival — and that was two years ago.
We didn't talk long, as Katie was itching to ride, but he seemed to be doing well. Now working as an EMT, back in school at HCC. He was back living in Mililani with his sister, as his parents had moved to Southeast Asia. Like Katie, his son was now three, and he was also wrestling with the preschool issue.
Eventually we traded e-mail addresses and he drove off, Katie waving as she too headed on her way.
So "Baywatch Hawaii" was canceled. Everyone's citing the declining ratings but not the departure of the mysteriously popular David Hasselhoff that caused them.
One of the dippy shoyu-bunny weekend news anchors kept referring to the announcement as "bad news." Her voice and those words kept scraping the back of my skull.
Plane crashes are bad news. Lost puppies, in most cases, are bad news. And certainly, the loss of the series will mean lost jobs and lost business, and there are thus elements of bad news.
But I've always been perplexed by the local media's bizarre lack of perspective when it came to that ridiculous bulging-bikini showcase. Almost without fail, the show's general health (or lack thereof, including an expensive bailout by the state only last year) is covered as a matter of universal importance. Making for a huge disconnect with the rest of the real world, since I'd wager 99.13 percent of both local residents and visitors will almost immediately react to an utterance of the word "Baywatch" with a disdainful snort.
There's no shortage of people who will be happy to see it go. You'll just never hear from them on TV.
Jen and I snuck out today to see "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" as an early Valentine's Day gift from my mom. We (or rather Jen) was quite torn between it and "O Brother, Where Art Thou" but Chow Yun-Fat won out over George "Lumpy" Clooney in the end.
We both enjoyed it a lot. This despite a pack of six kids making a nuisance of themselves in the theater, running up and down the aisle and climbing all over the chairs. (At one point, one kid jumped into the chair in front of Jen, and when he tried to recline, Jen not-so-discretely rebuffed his attempt.)
Beautiful. Inspiring. Just enough love, devotion and honor, mixed with just enough (fantastic) martial arts. No cheesy dubbing, and no Hollywood ending.
One of the previews we saw today was for "Pearl Harbor." It doesn't look like there's much depth to the film, or at least to the Japanese, though, beyond "the Japanese did a bad thing, and meanwhile there were these people in love." (At least there's apparently some acknowledgement was made that the U.S. all but invited 'em over, staying out of the war until it was too late.)
But. As melodramatic and quintessentially Hollywood as the preview was, it made me cry. I don't really know why. Except that although I didn't live through it, I know my family and this place — my home — were deeply affected by it. In that way, it's about as real as anything I've seen on the big screen.
I've always had mixed feelings about the picture (rather than the almost complete derision I've sensed elsewhere). On one hand it's a Bruckheimer vehicle, and will undoubtedly exploit a major historical event and real human tragedy for a sappy love story featuring unrealistically pretty people. But on the other, it'll probably be a blockbuster hit, and that could be a good thing.
As much of a mess "Titanic" was from an academic point of view, the effect it had on general awareness of and interest in the event was huge. With "Pearl Harbor," I'd much rather see controversy arise over historical accuracy, or an overload of A&E specials and elementary school projects, than nothing at all. My generation, or at least Katie's generation, have no real understanding of war. And that ignorance is one of the biggest ingredients in setting the stage for another one.
During our last class, my American Studies professor asked if we'd like to go down to a Bamboo Ridge reading-slash-fundraiser on Monday as a field trip. Our next book was by a local author, and we'd probably gain a lot from hearing other writers' work, read by the writers themselves (including Lois Ann Yamanaka).
Unfortunately, even after we all agreed to go, to shell out $10 bucks, and to arrange transportation, we found out the event was sold out. Good for Bamboo Ridge, bad for us.
I'm looking forward to our next book — "Rolling the Rs" by R. Zamora Linmark — just because I've read some of it already (and liked it) and because it's the most contemporary of the novels we're tackling.
Our current book, "Ceremony," is good but just a little too hard to digest. Daring and no doubt a wonderful tale, but that's tough to appreciate fully when we have to read and fully dissect it in the course of a few days.
It was at least interesting because it told the story of post-World War II life from a perspective I hadn't thought much of before. I mean, I know a lot about the AJA (Americans of Japanese Ancestry) experience, fighting in a war for a country that didn't trust them and put its families in internment camps (which is mentioned in "Ceremony" a few times). But "Ceremony" detailed life for Native Americans who fought in the war — fighting to defend the "land of the free," land that had been stolen from them.
They don't tell you about any of this stuff in elementary school.
Time for bed. Tomorrow, church in the morning, who knows what in the afternoon. It was Eathan's birthday today, but dad's just back from a trip and Gayle's sick, so a visit seems doubtful. We might try the "X-Treme Science" exhibit at Bishop Museum... featuring the world-famous glowing green mice cloned by UH scientists.
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